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The jazz icon's 100th birthday is a chance to appreciate an enduring throughline of his career, which often teetered between exquisite composure and raging chaos.

Players from 17 high schools were chosen for the Monterey Next Generation Jazz Orchestra. After studying to perform some of the most challenging big-band music available, the high-school all-stars perform alongside Terence Blanchard at the Monterey Jazz Festival.

With his writing partner, Fred Ebb, Kander wrote the music for the original Broadway musical Chicago. The movie version of Chicago is nominated for 13 Academy Awards this year. Kander and Ebb are nominated for their song "I Move On." Kander and Ebb also wrote the music for the shows Cabaret, The Act, Woman of the Year, and Flora the Red Meance, and the Martin Scorsese movie musical New York, New York. Both Chicago and Cabaret have recently been revived on Broadway.

Hip-hop culture, with its street rhythms and explicit lyrics, is more relevant in advancing civil rights today than the peaceful messages of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., author Todd Boyd says. In an interview with NPR's Scott Simon, Boyd says hip hop artists use language as a political weapon that provokes and "makes people think." (Note: Contains language that some may consider offensive.)

The steel drum musical instrument was first created in Trinidad, hammered from biscuit boxes, brake drums and oil barrels. One of the biggest "steel pan" bands of the 1960s was the Esso Trinidad Tripoli Steelband, who gained worldwide fame when an unlikely patron heard their act and took them on tour. Lost and Found Sound presents a story of calypso music, steel drums and flamboyant pianist Liberace.

NPR's Tony Cox interviews jazz composer Terence Blanchard about his latest projects.

Yung Lean goes full Joy Division by rapping over a brooding, fuzzy guitar line with the tonality of a Swedish Ian Curtis.

Music critic Mark Mobley examines three albums by English musicians that reflect the emergence of the gay civil rights movement.

Even Irish music sensation Damien Rice doesn't know exactly how to describe his own songs — part folk, part rock, a little chamber music, tied together with his unique, passionate singing voice. NPR's Melissa Block talks with the European music sensation on the eve of his first American tour — hear samples of his debut solo CD, O.

The 78-year-old singer is currently performing at Birdland in New York City. Previously, Carroll spent 25 years playing at Bemelmans Bar at the Carlyle Hotel. This year, she received three lifetime achievement awards; one of them was the Kennedy Center's Mary Lou Williams Women in Jazz Lifetime Achievement Award. Carroll has a number of albums to her credit; her latest is the new solo album Morning in May.